civil rights as a
citizen of France; but the last six years of his life he spent in
retirement. He was a member of the Academy till the 31st of March 1816,
when a decree of exclusion was passed. In demeanour he was quiet,
reserved and tactful, but when occasion called for it he proved himself
a brilliant orator. He was a celebrated _gourmet_, and his dinners were
utilized by Napoleon as a useful adjunct to the arts of statecraft.

See A. Aubriet, _Vie de Cambaceres_ (2nd ed., Paris, 1825).
(J. Hl. R.)

CAMBALUC, the name by which, under sundry modifications, the royal city
of the great khan in China became known to Europe during the middle
ages, that city being in fact the same that we now know as Peking. The
word itself represents the Mongol Khan-Balik, "the city of the khan," or
emperor, the title by which Peking continues, more or less, to be known
to the Mongols and other northern Asiatics.

A city occupying approximately the same site had been the capital of one
of the principalities into which China was divided some centuries before
the Christian era; and during the reigns of the two Tatar dynasties that
immediately preceded the Mongols in northern China, viz. that of the
Khitans, and of the Kin or "Golden" khans, it had been one of their
royal residences. Under the names of Yenking, which it received from the
Khitan, and of Chung-tu, which it had from the Kin, it holds a
conspicuous place in the wars of Jenghiz Khan against the latter
dynasty. He captured it in 1215, but it was not till 1284 that it was
adopted as the imperial residence in lieu of Karakorum in the Mongol
steppes by his grandson Kublai. The latter selected a position a few
hundred yards to the north-east of the old city of Chung-tu or Yenking,
where he founded the new city of Ta-tu ("great capital"), called by the
Mongols Taidu or Daitu, but also Khan-Balik; and from this time dates
the use of the latter name as applied to this site.

The new city formed a rectangle, enclosed by a colossal mud rampart, the
longer sides of which ran north and south. These were each about 5-1/3
English m. in length, the shorter sides 3-3/4 m., so that the circuit was
upwards of 18 m. The palace of the khan, with its gardens and lake,
itself formed an inner enclosure fronting the south. There were eleven
city gates, viz. three on the south side, always the formal front with
the Tatars, and two on each of the other sides; and the streets ran wide
an